Chapter 107 - Celes (1/2)

Gray started to nod off in the ice bath he was soaking in after Yurika got out of it, but he suddenly jerked awake when he heard a notification that he got a message.

"Hey, it's Kelly again!" Gray thought to himself. He knew better than to say he received a message from another woman when Yurika was probably relaxing on his bed in the next room.

Gray read the message to himself:

"Gray, or should I say Corporal Wilhelm? Glad to hear that your team is willing to work with us. I was hoping we could meet up in this world soon, but we were only able to secure permission to meet up virtually. That may change if the players do well in the upcoming tournament. Let me know a good time for everyone on your team as I will need to verify and then schedule with my CO. -Kelly"

"I should probably ask everyone about it first." Gray thought to himself.

"Are you done soaking you wimp?" Gray heard Yurika yell from his bedroom. "I heard cold water causes shrinkage." she added teasingly.

Gray didn't hesitate and got out of the ice bath. He was still fairly bruised, but at least the throbbing had now subsided and the bruises looked a bit smaller. Gray wrapped a towel around his waist after drying off with it then walked into his main room where Yurika seemed to be surfing the Internet on his tablet.

"Hey, what do you think about teaming up with a team from the military for the tournament?" Gray asked Yurika.

"I don't mind, none of us have anything against the military. Do we have to join the military though?"

"She told me we didn't have to, I'll message the others then and ask them their opinion."

"Was that who you got a message from in the tub?"

"Yeah, why?" Gray asked slightly confused.

"So you were messaging another woman while in the tub when I'm in here waiting for you?"

Gray felt the room temperature drop several degrees. "She um... she's just a classmate from my short time at the Military Academy, nobody I know that well!"

"Oh? So you still thought it would be ok to message her though?"

"No... I mean Yes! I mean... I don't know... Be gentle..."

Gray got himself ready to be hit at least and saw Yurika draw her fist back getting ready to punch him. Fortunately for Gray, Yurika only flicked his nose with her finger.

"Dork, don't worry... I... I trust you."

Gray always thought Yurika was cutest when she was honest with herself because she would get nervous and fidgety. "I trust you too, not just as a lover, but as a teammate and friend."

Yurika blushed "Gah, I hate it when you get mushy like that, it makes me want to just..." Yurika lunged at Gray and grabbed his head from both sides and pulled him in and kissed him hard, then pushed him away. "See what you do to me?"

Gray laughed and said "I have no idea what you're talking about!"

"Lies! You do know and you like to use it against me!"

"Ok ok, guilty as charged!"

Gray decided to send his message a bit later as he suddenly found himself busy after his towel fell off.

__________

Caleb returned to the virtual world to continue trying to dig up information on Edward Teach, Stephen Seegall, Alterra, and Yurika's past.

Caleb holed himself up again in his personal command center located deep in his house's basement. He had tried to research them from the real world but found out that communication was strictly blocked. His command center still felt safe to him, the virtual world still had the same rules as the real world, but he was pretty sure that Alterra Corporation could change them if necessary.

Physical monitors display much of the data collected that the AI team had collected for him. While considered antiquated as Augmented Reality could easily be used to make it look like he had limitless monitors, he liked having actual monitors instead of virtual monitors. The irony of physical monitors in a virtual world because he preferred real monitors wasn't lost on him either.

"Team 2, report status" Caleb said aloud to nothing from within his chair.

"..." Silence.

"Team 2, status update?" Caleb said again a little louder.

"..." Silence again.

"Celeste! Where is team 2?"

"Milord, you must disconnect now!" his female AI Celeste didn't bother to appear but instead shouted across his speaker system.

"Why? What's wrong?!?" Caleb said anxiously.

"We can only stop them for 20 more seconds, team 2 was quarantined and eliminated and they are tracing the origin here."

Caleb hurriedly got up from his chair and thought to himself "Save her or save the data...". Caleb found himself asking what Gray or the others would do.

"My lord, the data is backed up to your hidden cache, you must log out now!"